BIOGRAPHY

Ambassador Sandra Fuentes-Berain is currently the consul general of Mexico in New York. Previously, she was posted as Mexico’s head of mission to the European Union and ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg.

As a career diplomat, Ambassador Fuentes-Berain ascended all the ranks of the Foreign Service until she was appointed ambassador in 1988 while serving as consul general in Hong Kong. She has served as ambassador to Canada, France, and the Netherlands, as well as consul general in Milan, where she headed the Office for the Promotion of Businesses between Mexico and the European Union.
At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Fuentes-Berain was director general for Europe, director general for Asia/Pacific, and adviser to the minister. During her prominent career, she has actively promoted relations with NGOs, media, and business sectors. She participated in the negotiations of both NAFTA and the free trade agreement with the EU.

In the Netherlands, Ambassador Fuentes-Berain succeeded in adding Mexico to the International Criminal Court, and she chaired The Hague working group. During her tenure in Brussels, she obtained recognition of Mexico as a strategic partner of the EU, a distinction accorded to only nine countries in the world.

She has collaborated on numerous publications, including “Towards the Consolidation of a Strategic Relation: Mexico and Canada” (1997), “The Strategic Relation between the European Union and Latin America” (2008), and “Screams and Whispers II: 39 Women’s Untimely Experiences” (2009), to mention only a few.

Ambassador Fuentes-Berain has been decorated by governments and foreign institutions. She has received the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau (May 2007); Grand Officer of Merit, Italian Republic (December 2005); Commander of the National Order of the Légion d’Honneur, France (March 2001); Commander of the Order of Civilian Merit, Spain (May 1983); Commander of the Order of Isabel the Catholic, Spain (June 1983); Commander of the Order of the Polar Star, Sweden (October 1980); Order of Merit, Federal Republic of Deutschland  (Grand-Cross with Star) (May 1980); and Member of the Royal Victorian Order (April 1973). In 2007, she was appointed as permanent observer of Mexico to the Council of Europe.

Ambassador Fuentes-Berain was born in Mexico City and studied law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
As an acknowledgement of her remarkable career as a member of the Mexican Foreign Service, in 2012 the president of Mexico granted Ambassador Fuentes-Berain the lifetime rank of ambassador emeritus.